Frozen
by Lucinda
Summary: Remy's thoughts as he is abandoned in Antarctica


author: Lucinda  
rating: pg 13  
main character: Remy  
disclaimer: I do not own Remy or anyone else from Marvel comics.  
distribution: please ask first.  
  
  
The building was collapsing. Fear flooded Remy, knowing that there was no way that he would survive if the falling stone caught him. If he wasn't immediately crushed, he would slowly die from either blood loss or the cold. Remy had been put on 'trial' by a figure who had arranged for them all to be captured and brought here, to this now crumbling citadel in the frozen plains of Antarctica. This person, who had called himself 'Erik the Red' had worn a set of armor that had covered his entire body, and had proceeded to drag into the cold harsh light the knowledge of Remy's most shameful dark secret.  
  
He had assembled the Marauders for Sinister. The Marauders had then gone to a hidden labyrinth of tunnels under New York City, and proceeded to slaughter and maul a small community of mutants that had been living there. The Morlocks had died, ruthlessly butchered by the Marauders for no better reason than that Sinister had decided that they were 'genetically inferior specimens'. The X-Men had tried to save the Morlocks, and several of them had been seriously injured in that effort.  
  
They had found him guilty, which was not a surprise. What had been a surprise to Remy was when Betsy had been called up as a 'witness' and had started talking about things that she couldn't have seen, events that she wasn't present at. She 'remembered' some horrible images, damning images that painted Remy as a coward, as an accessory to the slaughter that had taken place.  
  
He had been judged guilty, and then the shouting had begun. He was called a coward and a murderer, accused of spying for Sinister the whole time that he had been with the X-Men. He was accused of betraying the X-Men, of selling out the team to enable Sinister to kill the Morlocks. Warren had tried to kill him, blaming Remy for the loss of his original wings.  
  
That had stopped only when the building had began to collapse around them. Suddenly, getting out before the building fell down on top of them had seemed more important than calling Remy names. People had bolted, and Remy had been vaguely aware of Betsy and Hank vanishing into a shadow before Rogue had grabbed him by the arm and flown down the hall in a desperate race against the collapsing stones.  
  
With groans and thuds, like a muffled roar the citadel collapsed, mere feet behind them. The cold snow swirled around them, and it was all Remy could do not to collapse into a fit of coughing from the snow, the biting cold, and the dust. The only sounds for a few moments were the moaning wind, the groaning of the new fallen stone, and a faint hissing noise from the shifting snow. Had everyone else made it to safety?  
  
"Chere? You know where everyone..." Remy began his question, hoping that the fact that she had pulled him out of the building meant something. Hoping that there was a chance she didn't despise him for the secrets in his past.  
  
"Shut up, Cajun. I don't want to hear anything you got to say. How could you have done those things! How could you have worked for that no good slime? You had no right not to tell us!" Rogue was angry, screaming at him, and her accent had thickened.  
  
"But I love you..." The whisper emerged from his lips, almost without thought. It was a feeble effort to try to gain a moment of understanding, of... something from her. An acknowledgement that he could feel? That his feelings carried some measure of meaning to her.  
  
If anything, that whisper only made her more furious. Her eyes were bright green, almost sparkling with anger, and she pulled back from him phsyically, leaving a full arm's length between them. Even her hair, whipped into tiny lashes by the wind, no longer touched him.  
  
"Love? Ya don't know anything about love! If you love someone, you're honest with them! You don't hide things from someone that you love! This was all just a big gamble for you, and surprise, ya lost."  
  
She produced something from her jacket, pushing the small bit of paper into his chest with a harsh gesture, as if pushing him away, pushing away everything that they had been to each other. "This might be more your style of woman. I don't want it anymore."  
  
As if eager to get away from him, she turned and leapt into the sky, vanishing from sight almost immediately in the wind-bourne snow and the pale clouds. Remy felt as if the scarred remnants of his heart were shattering, falling to the ground with the snow, little razor edged slivers of pain spreading through him. He hadn't thought that she would want to continue dating him, not after learning all that he had done, but this? She had pulled him from the collapsing citadel only to abandon him to the cold. He had only his uniform and his trench coat to protect him from the cold.  
  
That wasn't enough.  
  
He reached out, trying to 'feel' the presence of another mind, hoping that he wasn't as alone as the snow made it seem. He tried to listen past the rising feelings of abandonment, betrayal, and heartache. He could feel the faintest of presences at the edge of his range, leaving the area with a feeling of satisfaction. The X-Men were gone. Rogue was gone. He was alone.  
  
He glanced down at the paper that Rogue had shoved at him, unsurprised to see that it was the Queen of Hearts card that he had given her only a short time ago, the card that he had told her represented how she was to him, the embodiment of love and hope. It was as clear a sign that she didn't want him anymore as her more physical abandonment of him. She was rejecting his emotions, rejecting the idea that he could care about her.   
  
Remy turned back to the fallen building, hoping that there might be somewhere inside; some place out of the wind possibly some food that he could take with him. He managed to find a few empty halls that had been spared a bit, a room with an abandoned gauntlet that he'd seen on the hand of Erik the Red, and a few bars of some sort of rationed food, which he put into his pockets. There was nothing here to keep him from freezing. He could stay here, waiting for some one to rescue him, or he could try to move onwards, try to find some sort of shelter a place to huddle around something warm, somewhere out of the wind.  
  
Neither possibility looked very good. Remy had never been fond of waiting. He had also learned that the odds were against someone just showing up in time to save him. He would most likely die, alone in the cold. Might as well die trying to save himself as sitting here feeling here feeling sorry for the mess of his life.  
  
Remy chose a direction at random, and began walking. The direction was not quite into the wind, more of an angle. His vision was filled with floating dancing bits of brightness, and he could see nothing else, as if the world had vanished. The moaning wind, the hissing snow, the crunching noise of his footsteps, and the rasping noise of his breathing became the whole of Remy's world. He could feel the sting of tears trying to trickle down his face, feel them freezing on his cheeks, a cold burning feeling to match the pain in his heart.  
  
He staggered onwards, no longer aware of how long he had been in the cold, heedless of the passing of time. How long had he been staggering through this land of empty, cold pain? Did it matter? The wind no longer stung against his body, he had gone numb long ago. He could tell occasionally when his foot would slip, and something, some little ember of defiance made him pick himself up, made him continue moving.  
  
The cold had frozen his face, frozen the tears that had fallen on his cheeks, the ones caught in his lashes, felt as if it had frozen his eyes in their sockets. His heart felt like a gaping wound, raw pain in his chest. Something teased at his awareness... someone was near him. He almost managed the interest to look over, almost managed the energy to try to 'listen' for an identity, a motive.  
  
But the effort was too much. He had already demanded too much of himself, pushed his body too far past what he was capable of. Darkness swirled in, almost like a new form of snow, and Remy fell to the frozen ground, landing in a snowdrift, still and unmoving.  
end Frozen. 


End file.
